Much that was said about reading Genesis 1–11 in Chapter 2 applies also to reading Genesis 12–50, for there are many continuities of content and convention between these chapters. Indeed, any sharp distinction between chapters 1–11 and 12–50 has no warrant in the biblical text itself. Nonetheless, some distinction remains heuristically useful. Now in Genesis 12–50, the focus is no longer on the world and humanity generically; rather, the prehistory of Israel in the form of its ancestors becomes the center of attention. This raises certain distinct issues that merit separate comment.

THE PATRIARCHS AS A PROBLEM FOR JEWISH OBSERVANCE OF TORAH

Froma Jewish perspective, perhaps the central issue in understanding Genesis 12–50 is posed by the normative, indeed definitive, nature of God's self-revelation to Moses and Israel at Sinai/Horeb, together with the covenant making and gift of torah. If the norm for life with God is here, then how is Israel to understand those whose life with God is in some way of enduring significance – as Abraham and Sarah's, Isaac and Rebekah's, and Jacob and his twelve children's clearly are – and yet who lived without torah, because torah had not yet been given?

There are various possible approaches to this question. Should one perhaps imagine that torah somehow“must have” been known to the patriarchs and that they really were observant after all? This could take the form of supposing that Genesis's silence about observance need not mean its absence, and so the patriarchs were in fact formally observant.